Royal Digs by D. D. Scott Read Free Book Online

administration, they would
try to up the ante, so to speak.
    “Does that surprise you?” Roman asked me.
    “No, of course not. Although, I’d given The
Governor more credit than that. I can remember my mother saying how
careful my father and his associates always were when they were
outside of their Naples’ control zone. They handled their business
in ways it could not be easily tracked.”
    “We tracked it down,” Roman said, in a tone
indicative of a hate-to-break-it-to-you, good-natured taunt.
    “But it sure as hell wasn’t easy. And it’s
something no average person with limited resources could do,
right?”
    “You got me there, my friend.”
    Even as I scanned in the information, with
match after match staring back at me from the screen of my laptop,
I knew we were still missing something big. None of these guys were
dumb enough to keep everything in one place.
    What was I missing ?
    I took a break from building our case against
Crumley and my father and sat down next to the fire Roman had built
in our hotel suite.
    All at once, a dark shimmer of recognition
began to squeeze my heart. No. It couldn’t be. But yet it had to
be. There was no other explanation. All these years, that’s the
only piece I’d never figured out.
    We finally had the key that my mom had used
to bargain with the embassy to get us out of Naples and then to
America. And we knew that key belonged to Box 438.
    But that wasn’t all she had in her possession
the night my understanding of the world changed forever.
    What about the note she’d thrown into the
fire? The note the street urchin had delivered to her. What was it
that my father had revealed to her that night, besides the fact
that he knew I’d been born?
    There was only one way to find out. And for
that, I needed my sister and brother’s help. They were the ones
who’d gone through mom’s house after she and Alonzo were
killed.
    “I’ve got to go talk to Bunny and Clito,” I
said to Roman. “You stay here. Finish matching up all these names
and get them scanned in, okay?”
    “Sure thing. But why don’t I go with
you?”
    “No. I’ve got to do this alone. Well, with
just Bunny and Clito.”
    “No problem,” Roman said, then stopped typing
and reached for my arm. “Be careful, R. I’m not liking this at
all.”
    I nodded my head and hardened my resolve to
finish this once and for all.
    I didn’t tell Roman, but I liked it even less
than he did, if that were even possible.
     
    • • •
     
    “Thank you, Ross, for arranging this meeting
spot,” I said, thankful for his support.
    The entire Bellesconi family had always been
there for me. Here I was, their primary protector, but now, they’d
become mine. I’m not sure how I could ever repay them.
    “I’ll be right outside the door. If you need
anything, you know what to do to get my attention.”
    I smiled and nodded. Since I was wired, and
Roman had the receiver I’d designed out of an American flag pin,
all I had to do was push my pin and his would vibrate, signaling
his assistance was needed.
    “Take your time. This room isn’t scheduled to
be used until later this evening.”
    “Thank you. Thank you again so much.”
    If everything worked as I hoped it would,
we’d be gone long before then.
    While I waited on both Bunny and Clito to
arrive, I practiced in my mind how I would tell them, after all
these years, what I’d finally figured out. How do you tell your own
brother and sister the depth of your father’s evil?
    If my suspicions proved accurate, our father
made Bernie Madoff look like the tiniest of evil maestros. And I
certainly never thought that was possible.
    I wasn’t going to sugar coat anything. That
had never been my style. They needed the cold hard truth, as did
the American people and the world markets.
    Before I could get the information fine-tuned
in my head, the story ready to be told and the primary question
phrased, Bunny entered the small, walk-in-closet-sized room Ross
had